


Odd jobs

by sludge



Series: Modern Day Meet-Cute [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Extreme Thirst, First Meetings, Fluff, Gay Disaster Keith (Voltron), Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Office Worker Shiro (Voltron), shiro's grandma is the real hero of this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26674870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sludge/pseuds/sludge
Summary: Keith takes on odd jobs around the city. He keeps running into the same incredibly mysterious, incredibly handsome man.Hunk recognizes that the situation is dire.Pidge had already briefed him and Lance about the mystery man the previous weekend. She said that when she arrived at Keith's place that afternoon to see how the app testing went, he hadsmiled. Not only smiled, but mumbled something to Pidge about running into aguy. A guy who made himsmile. It was weird.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Modern Day Meet-Cute [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940935
Comments: 19
Kudos: 145





	Odd jobs

**Author's Note:**

> one day i sat down and told myself i'm going to make the most self-indulgent thing i can possibly think of
> 
> NOTE: the title of this fic is called "odd jobs" but i should say that window cleaning is NOT just some odd job!! it's a a very difficult and dangerous career and i dont want to dismiss that lol

**01\. Window cleaner**

It feels like something out of a movie, Keith thinks. He's up by the 18th floor of a skyscraper and the bustling city lays beneath him. Ant-sized cars scurry around corners and bunch up at stoplights; boats out at the docks look like toys drifting in the bay. He can even see the route back to his apartment from here. It's peaceful, and quiet save for the wind rattling his gear. Nothing compares to the view from a tall cliff in the Sonoran, overlooking dry brush and saguaros, but this, Keith thinks, isn't so bad for a city.

The wind is strong this high up. He's taken off his ratty baseball cap and clipped it on a carabiner at his hip to keep a gust from swiping it. He wishes he could turn and just survey the city for a bit longer, savor just being able to observe the action from afar, but there's work to be done and windows to be scrubbed.

The building they're working on today is swanky. Each room seems to be either an empty executive's office or a pristine boardroom that looks like it belongs in a stock photo. Almost all of them are totally empty, which seems weird for a Tuesday afternoon, but then again, Keith's never pretended to know jackshit about how offices work. He doesn't actively _try_ to scope out each floor he passes, but who could blame his eyes for wandering as he squeegees away splattered bugs?

This room, here on the 18th floor, is full of people in suits and pencil skirts huddled around a table covered in papers. Most of them have their backs turned, completely unaware that there's a guy standing right outside their window. He sprays the glass and starts wiping it down.

Inside, their meeting seems to end. A few of them rise and shuffle out of the door, and some linger, still pouring over the documents. One of them, on the far end of the room, stands and looks up. He locks eyes with Keith, who freezes mid-scrub.

Keith's brain registers three things in quick succession about this man, who he's now having a staring contest with, apparently.

First, his short quiff of hair is black and white like an honest-to-god skunk. Second, he's both very tall and very broad. His crisp white shirt is struggling to contain his shoulders, which have to be twice as wide as Keith's.

Third, he's handsome. Like really handsome. Like stupidly handsome. Like even standing a solid 20 feet away and through a solid glass windowpane, Keith can tell how good looking this guy is. Square jaw, bright eyes, and a killer smile, which Keith knows for a fact because the man is in the middle of smiling right now at—at Keith?

The handsome man is currently looking through the window Keith's washing and smiling at him, which is... not weird, but unexpected. When people notice him, they usually gape for a moment before politely ignoring he's there or pretending like he's just another part of the skyline. Which is how he prefers it, if he's being honest.

But instead of ignoring him, this handsome man is smiling and holding up... his hand? Oh god, Keith realizes, he's _waving?_

Keith actually turns his head to look behind himself, as if there could possibly be another person on this platform hundreds of feet in the air that this man could be waving at. The man is still smiling when Keith turns back around, so Keith does the only thing he can think to do and... raises a hand to wave back.

"Kogane, get moving!" Acxa yells at him from a floor below, giving him a heart attack.

Keith swears under his breath and scrambles to start the platform motor. When he gets enough sense back in him to glance into the room again before dropping to the next floor, the handsome, smiling, waving man is gone.

* * *

**02\. Dog walker**

It's Pidge who talks him into this. She and her brother are running wild over some new app concept they came up with, telling everyone, willing listener or not, that this is gonna be their big break into the tech startup world. Keith kind of zones out when he's stuck listening to Pidge babble about _APIs_ and _interfaces_ and a million other techie things he doesn't get, but he's sussed out that, essentially, their app is like Uber for dog walking. ("It's not like Uber, Keith!")

He's suspicious when Pidge offers to buy him lunch one day after her afternoon class ends. He's been friends with her long enough to know she doesn't do anything generous without an ulterior motive.

After they've sat down with their trays, Pidge folds her hands on the table, business-like. The sun coming in through the cafe window glints wickedly off her thick glasses. "I want you to be our first beta tester."

"No." Keith stabs his straw into his cup and sips his bubble tea.

"Two hundred dollars."

"Okay."

And that's how Keith ends up with his dog on a 6 AM walk—along with his neighbor's foxhound Olia, a floppy-eared boxer named Rolo, and the Holt family's bull terrier in tow. He's going to be vacuuming dog hair out of his car for a week, but he's got bills to pay, okay?

Keith is not a morning person, as much as his friends and the universe try to make him into one. All he's really capable of this early is stumbling out of bed, pulling on his sneakers, and letting the dogs lead him in a loop around the public park. His only source of comfort is knowing no other sane human would be awake to see him, blurry-eyed, half-asleep, and still in his pajamas.

When they pull up to the park, the sky is still a dusky blue as night is fading. Fog shrouds the streets and the park, hanging thick in the clusters of trees that frame the paved walking path. It's calm and quiet out, and cool despite the humidity. He zips up his jacket to shield himself from the chill, relieved he was awake enough to grab it before leaving his apartment.

The dogs are falling over each other to sniff everything, and their tails smack Keith's legs as he tries to not trip over their paws. Olia the foxhound sees a frog and almost pulls Keith's arm out of the socket trying to chase it. He manages to coax her away from where she's straining against her harness to snuff around the grass at the edge of the path. The other three are little sharks circling Keith's legs, trying to trap him in a whirlpool of fur and leashes.

_We just have to go around the park once_ , he thinks as he grits his teeth and readjusts his hold on the leashes. _We can survive one lap._ One lap and then he can herd them all back into his car, log his success on Pidge's stupid app, and make it home in time for a mid-morning nap.

The dogs all want to go in different directions at once, and Keith's starting to sweat with the strain of keeping them from pulling him over. He counts the leashes where they're tied around his forearms, not trusting himself to be able to keep track of the blurs of fur twisting around him. One, two, three...

Wait.

One, two, three—

"Oh, shit."

His dog's red leash isn't in his hand. Panic washes over him and his heartbeat kicks up. Where could he have—?

"Whoa! Hey there, buddy," a man laughs in the distance, and Keith's head snaps up toward the sound.

His dog, the absolute menace, has practically teleported himself away from the pack and is now trying to slobber all over what looks like a guy jogging on his morning route, leash trailing limp and forgotten behind him on the ground.

"No, Kosmo! Down!" Keith calls, trying to maneuver around the other dogs and rush towards the man. Kosmo's well trained, but he's a big dog who doesn't always know his own strength when he gets excited. "I'm so sorry about him, he's—"

Keith stops dead in his tracks. The causes of panic keep piling up.

It's the guy. The guy who waved at him when he was cleaning the windows of that high-rise. The handsome one. There's absolutely no mistaking that skunk-stripe hair.

And he's here now in the park, at 6 in the morning, before Keith's even brushed his teeth, and he's petting Keith's devil of a dog.

The man's wearing track pants and a stringer tanktop that's truthfully not so much a real piece of clothing as it is a scrap of fabric that hangs off his chiseled shoulders and his—Keith hates himself for thinking it—bountiful pecs. One arm looks robotic below the shoulder, paneled in matte black and silver, and as perfectly sculpted as his human arm.

It's too early for this. Keith wants nothing more at this moment than to just turn around and run away as fast as he can. Kosmo's smart, he can find his own way back home.

"All these dogs yours?" the guy asks as he bends to ruffle Kosmo's ears.

"No, uh, just that one. The rest are—my friend's." He's not about to explain the real reason why he's in the park at dawn with four dogs. "Kosmo, come."

His dog is too busy luxuriating in attention from the stranger to listen. The other three, evidently jealous of the attention Kosmo's getting, jerk Keith forward. He stumbles ahead until all four beasts can get their snouts on the man. He laughs at their excitement, trying to pet each one in turn, like he's genuinely delighted he's getting attention for so many drooling dogs.

"Did you say this one's name is Kosmo? What kind of dog is he?" the man asks.

"No clue," Keith says, frowning. "He's just a mutt. Definitely part husky, though. He could be from space for all I know."

"He's handsome, that's for sure," the man says. Kosmo is rolling around on the concrete now, showing off his belly like the traitor he is.

"He likes you," Keith says, his eyebrows coming together in part-confusion, part-disbelief. "He's never done this with a stranger before." Kosmo can't seem to get enough of the man, sniffling, licking, and wiggling his butt so hard his fluffy tail is a blur. Keith has only ever seen him like this when Hunk sneaks him bacon.

"I like you, too, buddy," the man grins as Kosmo snakes through his legs. "Would you like some help with these guys?"

Keith blinks. Did he hear right? What kind of person offers to help someone walk some stranger's dogs before the sun has even fully risen?

Keith must take too long to answer because the man repeats his offer. "I can take a leash or two if you need help."

_Is this guy for real?_ Keith doesn't accept help from others as a rule. He's long thought he's even forgotten _how_ to say yes to help at this point. But he'd also be lying if he said he didn't want a chance to look at this guy a little longer.

_No way,_ the rational part of Keith's brain is saying. "Okay," he says instead. "You know anything about handling dogs?"

"No, but I know how to keep a tight grip."

Good enough. Keith hands over Olia and Rolo's leashes and keeps hold himself on the Holts' dog and Kosmo ( _not_ because he was jealous of Kosmo abandoning him to fawn on a total stranger). Together, they set off down the pavement through the park.

It feels easy to talk to this guy. When he smiles, his warm eyes crinkle at the edges. He's funny and sweet, and he really, truly _gets_ it when Keith explains how the best smell in the world is his dog's fur after he's been rolling around in the sun. Keith knows Lance would call it being 'on the same wavelength', whatever that means.

They end up circling the park for close to an hour, just talking. Keith ends up explaining Pidge's app at one point ("Huh. So, it's like Uber but for dogs?" "That's exactly what I said!") and how his dog's name isn't _really_ Kosmo but his friends call him that enough that it's stuck and his dog won't respond to anything else ("He's only 'Kosmo' when he's in trouble."). The guy waits patiently when the dogs stop to sniff every single park bench they pass.

Keith loses track of how many circles they make around the park, but the sun fully breaks over the horizons and they start seeing other joggers passing them, a sign that time is passing and this dream can't last forever.

Keith feels like he's known this man for so long that it's almost taboo to ask him his name as if they've already passed the point where they can introduce themselves without it being weird. _Would_ it be weird, actually? He can never quite read the mood in situations like this. Lance says it's because he has the social skills of a fence post.

When they finally reach the parking lot, the man helps Keith load the dogs into his car, one by one.

"I've gotta go get ready for work." The man runs a hand through his black-and-white hair and gestures over his shoulder to his car parked on the other side of the lot. "If your friend's app gets off the ground, sign me up. I'd love to do this again."

"Yeah," Keith breathes out. He doesn't know what stopping him from asking for a name, a number, anything, except that he's spent his whole life knowing all good things come to an end. No reason a chance encounter with a hot stranger would be any different.

"It was nice getting to walk with you," the man says. He bites his lip, almost like he's expecting something. "I hope the dogs had a good time, too."

"Yeah," Keith says and winces when he realizes he just repeated himself. "I mean, the dogs loved it. Thanks again."

It's not until Keith has dropped off all the dogs and lowered himself face-first onto his pillow to contemplate his life choices that he remembers he never asked the man his name.

* * *

**03\. Courier**

Keith likes jobs where he can do what's already good at—and he's _very_ good at weaving his motorcycle through lines of congested city traffic, squeezing between lanes, and leaning into tight turns as he speeds down the streets.

As he drives, he thinks about the man. He daydreams of pulling up to a red light, glancing into a car beside him, and seeing those kind eyes and that bright smile looking back at him. It's only been a few days since the encounter in the park, but he finds his mind drifting towards the man more than he probably should.

Keith pulls into the parking garage of a sleek high-rise, one with floor-to-ceiling windows that look like a pain to wash. There's something familiar about this building, but he can't put his finger on what.

The ground floor lobby is crowded, full of people in identical-looking suits coming and going, all with the same harried expressions. Keith ducks into an empty elevator and punches the button for his destination. He clears his throat and pats the front of his bike jacket; today's task is just handing off an envelope, but putting on his polite face for well-dressed strangers always makes him self-conscious.

When he arrives on the 18th floor, he takes half a step out of the elevator and realizes, with absolute certainty, that his fate has been predetermined. Some higher power is toying with his life and turning it into some B-plot in a bad sitcom.

_The_ man is standing in front of the elevator doors. _Ah_ , he thinks. That's why this place seemed familiar.

"Hi," is all Keith can get out.

"Hi. No dogs today?" He's not wearing a tie and the top button of his shirt is undone as if he walked in off of a luxury cologne commercial. He's just an office worker, right? Are office workers allowed to look like this?

"No dogs. Kosmo can't fit on the bike with me."

The man laughs at that and the sound sends a flutter of delight through Keith.

"Can I help you with anything?" he asks as he steps close enough that Keith has to tilt his head to look up at him.

There's a pause while Keith's brain reboots and he remembers why he's here.

"Oh, uh...." Keith fumbles with the envelope tucked under his arm and tries to remember what he rehearsed in his head on the elevator ride up here. "I have a delivery for a Mr. Takashi Shirogane. Sent by Mr. Coran Smythe from the Altea Institute. Would you know where I can find...?"

The sun couldn't shine brighter than this man's smile. "You found me," he beams. "Call me Shiro, though. I don't think I told you my name that morning in the park."

"Shiro," Keith repeats automatically.

"That's me."

Shiro. A name. The star of Keith's recent daydreams has a name and it's Shiro. Keith had planned all the things he'd say if he ever met Shiro again, a hundred different conversations in a hundred different scenarios, but it's all vanished from his mind. Learning Shiro's name makes his daydreams feel real in a way they didn't before.

He holds out the envelope with both hands. "Then this is for you. Shiro."

Without breaking his gaze, Shiro reaches out to take the envelope but doesn't make to pull it away. Keith doesn't let go of it, either. He knows he's standing there and staring for too long, but he can't move from where his feet seem to be glued to the floor. He came here for a reason today, a reason he's forgotten because right now, nothing exists in this moment outside of Shiro's high cheekbones, warm eyes, and the shy smile tracing his lips.

Keith is going to do something crazy. _Can I give you my number?_ No, no, that's too passive. _Would you like to get coffee with me sometime?_ Maybe it's better to make a statement: _Let me take you out for drinks later._ That doesn't sound right in his head. He doesn't even know if Shiro would be interested, but he has to say _something_ before he loses his nerve.

He gets as far as opening his mouth when the office's lobby doors burst open across the room.

"Shiro!" comes a voice.

An elegant woman with platinum hair in long braids is standing there, looking frazzled. "I've been looking for you everywhere! Have you seen the Gamara press release? Absolutely _ridiculous_. Can you _believe_ they would—oh."

She registers Keith's presence, her eyes darting a triangle between Shiro, Keith's now rapidly reddening face, and the envelope clutched between their hands. Her eyebrows shoot up.

" _Oh_."

"Allura." Shiro says her name like a warning, his tone flat.

"That must be the intel from Coran about Gamara. Perfect timing, thank you." Allura strides over, high heels clicking briskly, and plucks the envelope from both their hands with a polite smile before rounding on Shiro.

"Shiro," she says sweetly. "I am _so_ sorry to interrupt your flirting, but this really needs your attention."

Keith's eyes go wide and he sputters, "W-we weren't—"

"We were just finishing up." Shiro's neutral expression would be flawless were it not for the faint pink blush creeping up his cheeks. "I can be there in five."

"You know this can't wait, Shiro," Allura says, reaching out to tug at Shiro's arm. She gives Keith an apologetic look. Of course. It's the middle of the work day and they're standing in the middle of a large office building. This isn't the time or place. Keith can take the hint.

Shiro starts to speak, but Keith jumps in first. "I shouldn't keep you from your work. See you around sometime, Shiro?" He realizes it sounds silly only after it's already come out of his mouth. He retreats half a step and slides his now-empty hands into his back pockets.

"Yeah, absolutely," Shiro says. If Keith didn't know any better, he'd swear Shiro almost looked disappointed. "Thanks, Keith."

"See you around, _Keith_." Allura winks at him. She steers Shiro back through the glass doors, mouthing what looks like _sorry!_ over her shoulder at him.

Keith watches as the two walk away, and Shiro looks over to give a short wave before they disappear behind a corner. Keith tries to match the wave, but it's too late for Shiro to see before he's gone. It's a little pathetic. He wonders if this is how his dog feels when he leaves for work in the morning.

He takes a moment to collect himself and force his face into something that's (hopefully) calm on the elevator ride back down. In the parking garage, as he pops the kickstand of his bike and revs the motor, he realizes something: he never introduced himself, but Shiro still thanked him by name.

* * *

**04\. Bakery worker**

Hunk needed some extra muscle to help out at the bakery, that's all. He promised a month's worth of free pastries in addition to a day's pay, and so that's why Keith's been awake since the ass crack of dawn hauling six months' worth of paper sacks that puff flour with every step into the bakery's storerooms from a delivery van parked out back. It feels good to lift each bag, a satisfying form of physical exertion that leaves Keith's muscles aching in the best way.

While he works, he fantasizes about gorging himself on cherry danishes and tries to _not_ think about handsome office workers he's lost his chance with.

By noon, he's coated with a fine dusting of flour over a layer of hard-earned sweat. The flour is in his hair, his shoes, the pocket of his t-shirt. He wouldn't be surprised if he got home to shower and found it in his underwear.

In the newly full storeroom, he and Hunk survey the bags like proud shepherds counting their flock. Hunk gives Keith his final task: arrange a few bags in the storefront window and then he'll be free for the day.

"The fuck, Hunk? Why?"

Hunk wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "'Cause, y'know. Makes us look legit or whatever. Like this is a real bakery. They'll look good next to that rolling pin robot Pidge made."

"This _is_ a real bakery, though." Keith grunts, but he lets Hunk heft three bags into his arms. They stack up higher than his head, blocking his vision, and he's a little wary of one slipping out of his grasp—he does _not_ want to be stuck here for another hour cleaning up an explosion after dropping one.

"Yeah, and now people will be able to tell we're the real deal because of the flour. Now shoo. Make it look artful."

"You don't even sell flour," Keith grumbles, mostly to himself. He doesn't know what it means to make flour look _artful_ or whatever, but he'll still try. For the cherry danishes' sake. He readjusts his hold on the bags—it's harder than it looks to wrangle 60 lbs of paper bag—and pushes his way out of the swinging double doors that lead to the front.

It _should_ be deserted this time of day, the calm before the lunch rush. But Keith's life has never adhered to what _should_ be true.

It happens in slow motion—no, actually, it happens so quickly that it's just flashes of a scene that his brain can only process later once he's home alone in the shower.

The bell at the front door jingles. From the register, Shay calls out a greeting to a customer. Keith is so focused on not getting clipped by the corner of the counter or tripping over his own shoes that his brain doesn't register either noise.

He's walking forward with his 60 lbs of flour and then, without warning, he's slamming into a brick wall.

He tumbles back and lands flat on his ass, but the bags have momentum of their own and he hears a _thud_ and suddenly there's a snowstorm inside the bakery.

His swirling vision rights itself and he realizes it wasn't a brick wall that materialized in the middle of Hunk's bakery. It's—

" _Keith?_ Are you alright?"

It's—Shiro. He's standing over Keith, looking concerned and extending a hand through the haze of dust like some sort of guardian angel. A guardian angel wearing a suit and tie and covered in enough flour to bake a hundred cherry danishes.

Dazed, Keith reaches out to Shiro's hand and lets himself get tugged to his feet. Being upright and face-to-face with Shiro brings him back into the moment and he realizes the disaster of the scene around them—the disaster of _him_.

It's bad.

Keith looks as if a factory that only manufactures white chalk exploded on him. He's been sweating for the past five hours and his hair is damp and clinging to his face. His shirt _and_ jeans have holes in them. Keith is, in a word, gross. But that's not what he should be focused on now because Shiro is—he's—

He realizes that Shiro is talking. "—so sorry, are you hurt? Let me help—"

But the alarm bells blaring in Keith's head override everything else. He's trying to put together the puzzle pieces in his mind, but they're not making any sense. Shiro is here. Here in a suit, and also covered in flour. Flour from the bags that are torn open and spilling out around their feet. Which are torn because Keith dropped them. Because he ran into Shiro. Meanwhile, he can hear Shay apologizing and trying to redirect the line of lunch rush customers that are starting to trickle in through the door. An audience to his mortification.

So, Keith does what anyone does in an awkward situation that involves dropping a bag of flour on a hot guy in a suit: he turns on his heel and runs away.

Hunk recognizes that the situation is dire. Not because of the mess; they have an industrial-sized vacuum for that.

Pidge had already briefed him and Lance about the mystery man the previous weekend. She said that when she arrived at Keith's place that afternoon to see how the app testing went, he had _smiled_. Not only smiled but mumbled something to Pidge about running into a _guy_. A guy who made him _smile_. It was weird. Seeing Keith be anything but moody and aloof was rare enough for their entire group to wonder if pigs around the world had suddenly sprouted wings.

The second he poked his head out to see what the commotion was, Hunk had recognized _the guy_ —not only from Pidge's brief second-hand description (beefy, skunk-haired, angel-faced) but from the way Keith was standing in front of him, looking full deer-in-a-headlight. The red-faced, frantic Keith who ran back in through the double doors was a Keith that Hunk had never seen before.

And now they're sequestered in the back room. Keith is hunched over the break table and Hunk has finally come to talk some reason into him, not in the least because it's been over an hour and the part-timers are getting scared of the flour-encrusted mess haunting the back.

"So... did you at least get his number?" As if Hunk doesn't already know the answer.

Keith shakes his head, sending off a miserable little puff of flour with the movement. Hunk thinks Keith looks like a depressed Christmas figurine that was caught in a snow globe's blizzard. Like a ghost in a low-budget student film. Like a sad, grumpy powdered donut. Poor guy can't be comfortable like this, but he seems determined to wallow in his misery.

"I blew it, Hunk."

Hunk, patience of a saint, heart of pure gold, just sighs. "Dude, c'mon. You didn't blow it. I bet you'll see him again."

Keith lets out a whine, muffled against the Formica tabletop where his face is pressed. Hunk didn't even know he could make a noise like that.

"He's so hot. He's got so many muscles."

"I know, buddy. I could see."

"He was so nice to me. And I dumped a bag of flour on him. Why do I always have to ruin everything?"

"I'm sure he didn't take it personally. Look, you just have to apologize and give him your number if—when you see him again."

"It's not that simple—"

"It is, though! Repeat after me: 'Hey man, sorry for destroying you with flour, but you're mega sexy and I'd like to get dinner with you sometime. Here's my number.' No, say this: 'Dude, I totally want to get to know you in the Biblical sense. Call me.' Actually, don't say that, say it more like—"

The daggers Keith shoots from his eyes would be enough to kill a lesser man.

Hunk just smiles fondly.

* * *

**05\. Handyman**

Keith was told by Lance, who was told by his grandmother, who was told by Pidge's grandmother, that a member of the neighborhood seniors' bingo club needed a strapping young man to come fix a broken cabinet door and re-caulk the bathtub because her grandson was too busy. Lance declined to take up the task, citing overtime at work and a general lack of knowledge about anything related to cabinetry or caulk.

"I told her I didn't know any other strapping young men, but that I would still ask you," Lance had said, smug as he clapped a scowling Keith too hard on the back.

He promised himself he wouldn't do any more odd jobs for friends after the bakery incident—too much of a chance for fate to screw him over and bring him face to face with Shiro again. But who could say no to a grandma?

So Keith loads up his backpack with tools, slings a leg over his motorcycle, and makes the drive out to one of the city's quiet suburbs. He parks in the driveway of a little brick house with a bright white door.

Fumiko is the classic grandmother type: slight stature, tightly curled cloud of hair, stooped shoulders, shuffling in her gingham house slippers like a woman on a mission. She had patted his cheek when he arrived, fussing over him when he politely turned down her offer of tea.

He spends the first half of the afternoon crouched in the bathtub, up to his elbows in caulk. After, Fumiko has him tighten the hinges on a few kitchen cabinets, move a heavy couch in her living room, hang a picture frame, and finally, re-pot a huge houseplant.

After every task, Fumiko offers him something—tea, coffee, a sandwich. Keith declines each time with his politest "no, thank you, ma'am", but the offers secretly make him feel kind of warm inside. He never had grandparents growing up, and being doted on like this makes him nostalgic for something he's never known. It's not a bad feeling.

His little moment of introspection is interrupted when he hears the front door open and Fumiko call out, "Takashi! You said you weren't coming today!"

Keith turns from where he's washing his hands at the kitchen sink to see Fumiko at the door as a man ducks inside.

Keith is incapable of feeling shock or surprise at this point. He passed all the other stages of grief a long time ago and now he's come to acceptance. Resignation. Sufferance. He knew this would happen. He knows the ways of the universe now, even if he doesn't understand them. No good deed goes unpunished, they say.

"Keith, dear, this is my grandson, Takashi." Fumiko pats Shiro's arm. "He always helps me around the house, but that company of his has been keeping him late these days. Too busy to see his own grandmother, can you believe it?" She lets out a long-suffering sigh.

"Keith," Shiro sounds as breathless as Keith feels. "I—We've met, Baba." He says it to Fumiko but doesn't take his eyes off Keith.

"Have you, now? You could have told me you knew such a nice young man!"

Fumiko turns from the door and shuffles back into the entry hall, pinching Keith's elbow as she goes.

"Takashi, don't just stand around; make our guest some tea. He's done a lot of hard work today." He hasn't, really, but he's somehow powerless to say no to Fumiko this time around.

Fumiko guides Keith by the elbow to the kitchen table where he sits obediently under her grandmotherly gaze. Shiro shucks his suit jacket before opening the same cabinet Keith just fixed that afternoon. Fumiko sits beside Keith and chatters at them, regaling them with the latest gossip from the neighborhood seniors' club. He tries to listen, he really does, but the reality of the situation is getting to him as he watches Shiro fill his grandmother's flower-patterned kettle.

The topic of conversation—not that Keith is contributing to the conversation more than an occasional _yes, ma'am_ or _no, ma'am_ —turns to Shiro. "I always tell him he needs to finally settle down, but he never listens. Do you, Takashi?" She swats him lightly with a newspaper laying on the kitchen table and turns towards Keith to whisper conspiratorially, "Can you believe he isn't married yet? I just hope he finds someone to take care of him before I'm gone."

Shiro's long-suffering sigh sounds exactly the same as his grandmother's. He puts down a tea canister to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Baba, we talked about this."

"Oh, hush. You understand my concern, don't you, Keith?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Fumiko beams at his response and reaches out to squeeze his hand. "I wish my grandson was more like you. You've got nice manners. Need a little more meat on those bones," she eyes him up and down critically, "but you're a good boy, I can tell. Do you have a special someone right now?"

"Baba!" Shiro sounds scandalized and Keith feels his face go bright red.

Fumiko waves her hand as if to dismiss Shiro's concern. "It's just a question, dear!"

For once, though, fate smiles upon Keith when the corded phone on the wall rings and he's saved from having to answer when Fumiko jumps up to answer.

"C'mon," Shiro says to Keith, jerking his head towards the back door, tea tray in hand. "Let's get out of here before she invites you to Christmas."

He lets Shiro usher him out through the sliding glass doors, which lead out to a raised wooden porch overlooking a backyard that's home to a well-organized garden brimming with more plants than Keith could ever name.

He follows Shiro in sitting on the edge of the porch, accepting a cup of the tea. Keith is, as always, painfully aware of the odd couple they make: Shiro in an immaculate white button-up and Keith in his scruffy work overalls, covered in dried caulk. He feels out of place. At least it's not flour this time.

They drink in silence.

The sun is starting to set. Cicadas keen in the distance; the wind ruffles the leaves of the backyard garden. It's peaceful, like a scene from a movie. Keith would appreciate it more if he were in literally any other situation but this one.

He—well, he doesn't know what to do. Should he... just come right out and apologize for the bakery? Is it too late to apologize? Does he say something else first? Does Shiro feel awkward about this too? His stomach is doing backflips right now. Every second that he lets drag on in silence feels like it's compounding the tension that's tearing him up inside, but Keith is honestly at a loss for what to say. Or maybe he just doesn't trust any of the words that would come out of his mouth.

Another minute drags, Keith sips at his tea some more, and Shiro finally takes mercy on him.

"So," Shiro pipes up. "I feel like I see you all over the city. What exactly do you do?"

When Keith glances at Shiro, he's smiling, warm and open. Like he's just asked a normal question of a new friend and not some weirdo who made him walk dogs at dawn and then bombed him with flour and then showed up at his grandma's house.

Keith has to think for a moment about how to answer and decides to go with the truth. "Window cleaning is the only regular thing. For the other stuff, I just, um, do a lot of favors for friends." This is small talk, right? He normally hates small talk, but he'll take anything he can get at this point.

"Sounds like you're a good friend," Shiro chuckles. "Honestly, I wondered when I was going to see you again. It feels like something interrupts us every time we run into each other."

Keith's face goes hot with the knowledge that Shiro was thinking about him, too. Maybe he wasn't imagining things in the park and at the office. Shiro is kind in a way that feels both deliberate and natural for him, like he wants Keith to feel comfortable.

If Shiro can take a proverbial step forward, so can Keith.

"Sorry for dumping all that flour on you at the bakery and bailing," he blurts out. _Sorry I can't seem to act like a normal fucking human when you're around._ "I hope I didn't ruin your suit."

Keith can't bring himself to look up at Shiro, instead running his thumbs over the painted details of the teacup just for something to do with his hands.

Shiro laughs good-naturedly. "My coworkers got a good kick out of it when I explained why I didn't come back from lunch that day. Don't worry, the suit's fine."

"I can pay the dry cleaning bill if—"

"Keith, it's fine. Really, I promise."

"Okay." It comes out as more of a whisper.

The silence falls back over them. It's not tense, but it makes Keith feel restless. With Shiro, he feels an urge, strange and new to him, to keep him talking. To hear his voice, his thoughts. To communicate.

Keith clears his throat. "If your grandma ever needs help again, you can call me. I mean—your grandma can call me. You both can call me." Not how he meant for it to come out, but it's a start.

"I'll keep that in mind," Shiro half-murmurs. Keith can hear the smile in Shiro's voice, which is low and sweet like honey. It makes Keith shiver a little.

The sun is getting low in the sky, casting them in warm, red light. A breeze stirs a wind chime hanging from the porch roof. Keith wishes this moment didn't have to end.

"Takashi! Come in and give dear Keith his payment!" Fumiko calls out to them from inside the house.

Beside him, Shiro stands. "We should head in. It's getting late," he says, stretching his arms over his head. Keith scrambles to stand up, too, and suddenly they're face-to-face like that day in the office. From this close, Keith can see the soft curve of his lower lip and the light pink scar that runs jagged across the bridge of his nose.

"Can I see you sometime when you're not on the clock?" Shiro says, barely inches from Keith. His brown eyes are amber in the setting sun and he holds Keith's gaze, steady and strong.

"Yes." Keith blurts it out before his brain can even fully process what Shiro just asked. "Yes. Anytime."

"It's a date, then," Shiro says.

Keith remembers he once thought all good things in his life had to come to an end. But maybe, this time, that doesn't have to be true.

* * *

**00\. Yoga instructor (2 months ago)**

Going to the class was Allura's idea. They can make a Sunday of it, she said. Sunrise yoga in the park and then brunch afterwards so they could get tipsy on mimosas at 11 AM. It'll be fun, she said. Famous last words.

There were almost two dozen others spread out across the park's lawn when they arrived. Allura led him to the very back, four rows deep, where they laid down their mats across the dew-damp grass.

It'll be fun. Allura's voice rang in his ears as he watched the instructor take his place at the front of the group.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm Keith and I'm filling in for Romelle today."

The instructor, Keith, spoke calmly as he sat cross-legged on a red mat in front of the class. The relaxation in his body was betrayed by his mouth, which was set in a line that looked like it threatened to drop into a pout at any moment, and his eyes, which were dark and intense and lovely.

It was too early for this, Shiro thought. If he were a cartoon character, his eyes would bug out of his head, his jaw would drop to the grass, and he'd start panting like a dog.

Keith. _Keith._ He would remember that name.

"We'll start with some breathing exercises, okay?"

Keith closed his eyes and talked the class through inhaling and exhaling. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight, each second counted aloud. His voice had a pleasant rasp to it. Shiro knew he should shut his eyes with the rest of the class, but that would mean taking his eyes off of Keith, whose hair was pulled back into a tiny half-up-half-down ponytail. Shiro wasn't staring, but Keith was—he was just _so_ cute—

Allura elbowed him in the side, grinning. "Stop ogling," she stage-whispered. "We're here for yoga."

"I'm not _ogling,_ " Shiro hissed as they moved into their first full pose.

"Bring your foot to the front of your mat and step into a deep lunge." Keith's legs were long and his strong body bent easily. Shiro tried to keep his breathing steady and slow. "You should feel it here." Keith dragged a hand down the fabric of the form-fitting yoga pants over where it clung to his hip and thigh. Shiro was going to need several—no, many mimosas after this. "This stretch will really open you up. Feels good, right?" Allura would pay for all of them.

It's when Keith led the group through a particularly twisted pose, his shirt falling down to expose a toned stomach that flexed before he bent himself in half, that Shiro decided he's couldn't take this any longer.

" _Allura_ ," Shiro pleaded. He didn't exactly know what he was pleading for, but whatever it was felt like Allura's responsibility. He couldn't see Allura from where he was folded over, but her snickering was unmistakable.

"We paid for this class," she chided under her breath. "Get it together, Shiro."

She was right. He was stronger than this. He'd given presentations to Fortune 500 CEOs before. He was the youngest person in his industry to speak at a major international conference. He's been solo camping in the Andes. He shouldn't feel this helpless just seeing a beautiful, dark-haired man bend himself into a pretzel.

After the class finally, finally ended, he and Allura stuck around for the crowd to disperse. Shiro turned his back to where Keith was rolling up his mat, trying to will his face to stop looking so much like a tomato.

"You can do this." Allura was encouraging, but her eyes still sparkled with delight at his suffering. "Just go up and ask for his number."

Shiro took several deep breaths, turned around, and—

And discovered that Keith had already disappeared. His dark ponytail was nowhere to be seen in the crowd milling about the park.

The most attractive man he'd seen in his life, gone.

Allura patted him on the back. "Maybe we can come back next Sunday? Romelle might be out again."

Shiro felt his confidence deflate a little bit, like a sad balloon. "Yeah, sure."

"It'll be alright, Shiro," Allura consoled. "Who knows? Maybe you'll see him around town sometime."

**Author's Note:**

> When Keith left Fumiko's house, she tucked a few bills into his hand, told him to come over for a cup of tea any time he liked, and kissed him on the cheek. Shiro—being the gentleman his grandmother always taught him to be—walked Keith out to his motorcycle, plugged his number into Keith's phone, and kissed him on the other cheek.


End file.
